Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

Yesterday six emperor penguins decided to walk on through the airfield on their way to who knows where. I saw them. I did not get as close as this shuttle driver did who got this picture. These emperor penguins get big. They are 3 foot high, plus. Someone remarked that they are like small humans. My flight to Taylor Dome is set for 7:15 AM (McMurdo Local Time which is +18 hours Eastern Time) again in a Twin Otter skiplane. I expect to be back Wednesday or Thursday. It may be longer if weather gets bad. I plan on sleeping outside in a tent. I have to install a few radios and a special GPS unit. Other than that I will be messing with the ham radios and helping out with whatever needs to be done at the camp. Expect some good pictures on my return.

I am on Weather hold for my trip to Taylor Dome. Maybe I won't get there until next week. We don't fly on Sunday normally.

Today is the day I head out to Taylor Dome on a twin otter skiplane. I have been having fun at work fixing radios and troubleshooting system issues all week. There are a lot of radios down here thats for sure. And there is a great variety. I have been reflecting on the three things that I believe make this place hospitible: Communications, Mobility, and Shelter. I find these three items to be a key classification system to understand and optimize sucesss in operating in such a harsh environment. I expect to sleep outside tonight. It will be between -25 and -40. It will be the coldest I have camped out I think. -25 below has been my coldest experience in happy camper school a few weeks ago. Before that it was with Jeff in Alfred NY. We did not have a thermometer but it was definately well below zero that night. That was few years ago but you have a tendency to remember them. Since then I have learned a lot about cold weather. Most of the lessons have come in the last month. A real good ...

It is Thursday night. It is American night over at Scott Base (the New Zealand base). It is a couple miles away. I didn't much feel like going so I didn't. My ankle is a lot better. Today a co-worker and installed a radio with a battery/solar charger in a fuel pump house. Of course that was just a small fraction of what was done today. I received a satellite call from the folks out at Taylor Dome. They said I can slept in a heated module or with some of others who are camping outside. They said it was cold. That means (it takes a while to figure what cold means with all the unspoken context) it is between 25 and 50 below. I told them I will decide when I get there. I have to help them decide whether to dig up an antenna they see 5 feet of. The rest is buried in the snow. I am pretty sure it is a minimum of 35 feet tall which means 30 feet is under snow since 1996 (when it was supposedly installed). It does not snow a lot here but it did today. The snow really gets moved aro...

Another busy day. I am all set to go out to Taylor Dome on Saturday. Hopefully I will be getting back to McMurdo on Monday. I am scheduled to go out on a Twin Otter. I am pretty excited about being on the Twin Otter. I am not sure why. Hopefully I can get a ride back on a Basler which is a turbine powered DC-3. Last night's science lecture was about Antarctica past and future. A scientist who has been coming down since 1962 led the discussion with a lot of his personal photos. His photos included the first fossils found in Antarctica, petrified logs and all sorts of interesting geological content. My ankle is much better. I went up to T-site today to check on a connection for the NASA folks. The picture out the truck window is on the road up to T-site. It is hard to judge heights from photos. It is at least 1000 feet down to the Ross Ice shelf. The other picture shows some of the hellium tanks for the Long Distance Balloon (LDB) project. The LDBs are launched in Antarctica sort o...

The guys got off the mountain last night. They had quite a time. They almost broke into the survival bags. They left the bags and some tools to come back and get them another time. I understand they had all their ECW on. That is extraordinarily unusual. One of my co-workers is out at WAIS divide (a deep-field camp). He called in on a satellite phone (we get thirty seconds of some poor reception because of the satellite being so low on the horizon. There was a pretty nasty storm going on so there was no work getting done outside. I shipped him a new HF antenna today and some climbing gear. My ankle is getting a lot better. It is turning black today. I guess that is a good sign. The paper work is worse than the injury. --more on that one-- I worked on the NASA system today. The NASA guys were really pleased that I managed to get the stuff going even without the correct components. There is often talk of McGyver down here. You have to fix what you have to fix with what you have to fix...

I went to medical about my ankle. The flight surgeon was quite helpful and informative. I have a minor/moderate sprain. I don't think I have ever twisted my foot so bad before. It was a good warning for me. It means that although I have been very careful I have not been careful enough. I worked in the shop today hobbling around while everyone was out in the field. My ankle is already a lot better now that I have an ace bandage on it. The startling thing has been that I can't walk as fast. People are passing me, yikes! I should be headed out to the field later this week. It got kind of nasty out there today anyway. It is 7:15 right now and four of my co workers are still on the mountains. The weather has closed in and they can't get them off. They were supposed to be picked up about 4:00. One of them sounded kind of cold up there. Whenever we get dropped off by a helo we get survival bags which includes a tent, sleeping bag, shovel, camp stove and food. I am sure hoping the...